I think this order is somewhat off, myself. I’m not sure I’d want my character as an NPC in the game, it’d be kinda creepy seeing it. I personally would much rather have the 3D print, or hell even the drawing. If nothing else, those two prizes are potentially immortal, whereas the grand prize loses weight as soon as I stop caring about the game.

In any case I’m not a Japanese resident so I probably can’t enter anyway. There is apparently nothing that explicitly states this, however. I also wonder that given that a 3D print is a prize that they may well continue on and actually implement a 3D printing service. Guessing that they’ve found a company at least.

Of course, I’d imagine these fields would need to be filled in in Japanese!

The entry period is April 11, 2012 – April 20 (Wed) 23:59 (Friday) Japan time.

You can only submit 1 character for the contest.

Character Limits

So how many characters do you think you’ll be limited to without paying to make more? 4? Wrong, but not unreasonable given the limits the previous Phantasy Star Online games have offered. 2? Wrong again!. You’re only allowed to make 1 character. You have to pay to make more. There is also an upper cap of 12 characters per account.

Now I don’t think anyone imagined you’d be able to created an unlimited number of characters, no MMO that I know of offers this to their players. It is honestly a little surprising for them to limit it to just the one, however. I know a lot of people who like to raise alts, so having to pay for the pleasure is going to rub them the wrong way. For me it depends on the price of the slots as well as the price of related account services (remembering that there may be the possibility that you’re going to be renting your room). Plus the addition of having to pay for an extra slot might actually motivate me to complete a character’s gear loadout without getting distracted by the novelty of rolling new characters. Extra character slots are naturally permanent additions to your account.

New Outfits!

Worried about the lack of outfits and hairdos? Well Arks Cash is here to save the day! I’m somewhat worried that ALL extra costumes outside of the defaults may be cash shop only but they’ve not actually directly said this. Even if they are, however, PSU’s history suggests they may be tradeable anyway. If that’s the case you’ll be able to buy them from players for Meseta, which for me would be acceptable.

Now there will be new outfits in the beta, but it seems we won’t actually get to wear them. Instead there’ll be NPCs showing them off to tease us.